


The Great Odyssey - Christmas 2012

by Sunhawk16



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Chibi, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-17 09:31:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14829753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunhawk16/pseuds/Sunhawk16
Summary: From the 12 days of Christmas 2012.Merry Christmas, happy holidays, cheery random Tuesday, joyous commercialism, blissful whatever you celebrate (We're a diverse group, we are)!Wrapping up another year (anybody else noticed that they're speeding up?) and I can't say (despite the vague fandom attractiveness of the numbers) that 2012 was a particularly good one. But, I suppose, (in the grand scheme of things) at least the Mayans were wrong, so I guess it wasn't all bad. Here is hoping that 2013 is a little less of the suck (set your goals low, kiddies, and they're easier to make).Anyway... enough musing. On with the fic. ;)This one is for you, Silke dear... I hope it doesn't suck.If you've been paying attention to the Christmas cards for the last five or so years... you know how this comes out... :D





	The Great Odyssey - Christmas 2012

**Author's Note:**

> From the 12 days of Christmas 2012.  
> Merry Christmas, happy holidays, cheery random Tuesday, joyous commercialism, blissful whatever you celebrate (We're a diverse group, we are)!  
> Wrapping up another year (anybody else noticed that they're speeding up?) and I can't say (despite the vague fandom attractiveness of the numbers) that 2012 was a particularly good one. But, I suppose, (in the grand scheme of things) at least the Mayans were wrong, so I guess it wasn't all bad. Here is hoping that 2013 is a little less of the suck (set your goals low, kiddies, and they're easier to make).  
> Anyway... enough musing. On with the fic. ;)  
> This one is for you, Silke dear... I hope it doesn't suck.  
> If you've been paying attention to the Christmas cards for the last five or so years... you know how this comes out... :D

It was the day before Christmas which was like the night before Christmas, only not dark. Christmas was the most awesome of all awesome days, better than a birthday because everybody else got presents too, so you didn’t have to share or anything. And instead of just cake, there were cookies and fudge and peanut brittle and brownies and candy and pies and cake. And you didn’t get yelled at for eating it unless you were a pig and ate the last piece. (Trowa said that was the good stuff rule… never eat the last one.)

But there was something about Christmas that wasn’t all together awesome; you didn’t get to see your friends because Christmas was all about families, Duo’s Mom said. So you had to stay home. Or, like Wufei’s family did, you went to Grandpa’s house.

Duo didn’t think it was fair that he would get a bunch of cool toys and couldn’t even show them off until the next day. What good was a brand new set of ultimate Gundam Legos with the Moon Base expansion set if he couldn’t have Heero over to help him build? Not that, of course, he knew that was what he was getting, but he was pretty sure because that’s what he asked his Dad for every time they went shopping. And his Dad liked Legos too and they would stand and look at the box together in the store and point to all the pieces and say ‘cool!’ a lot.

And, not that Duo didn’t love the Christmas morning breakfast with his Mom and Dad and the gooey rolls his Mom only made from scratch that one day all year. And not that he didn’t love getting to stay in his jammies all day. And not that Christmas dinner wasn’t the best dinner that there ever was with all the special stuff that you never had any other time of the year. But it would have been the most perfect, bestest, most awesomest Christmas ever if he could have had his friends over too. And they could have all stayed in their jammies all day, even if Quatre really did still wear the jammies with the feet in them like Trowa said. And his Mom could make a hundred sticky rolls and they could all eat breakfast together and then build Gundams all day long.

But Christmas was all about families, so Duo’s Mom said he would have to ‘make do’ with seeing his friends on Christmas eve day (which was Christmas eve without the dark part). So right after lunch and after his Mom had bundled him up in coat and hat and mittens and snow boots, Duo ran off with his little sack of presents to Trowa’s house. Duo liked Trowa’s house; it wasn’t as cool as Quatre’s house, because Quatre’s house was the biggest, but Trowa’s Mom was a crazy cat lady, and they had lots of cats. Though Duo wasn’t allowed to say crazy cat lady anymore, even if he didn’t understand why it was ok for Uncle Howard to say, but not him.

When Duo got to Trowa’s house, Heero and Wufei were already there and trying to build a Tinker Toy Ferris wheel in the middle of the living room. Heero was building, anyway, but Trowa and Wufei were trying to keep the cats from knocking it down. Especially the big black cat named Bully-Boy. Bully-Boy was Duo’s favorite because he didn’t run away the minute Duo came into the room like the other cats. Bully-Boy would hang around long enough to make the funny hissy noise before he ran away, so Duo was usually able to pet his tail before he left.

‘Thanks, Duo!’ Wufei grinned, when Bully-Boy had made the hissy noise, gotten his tail petted really good, and run off. ‘Now we can finish building the circus!’

That didn’t seem like a not-dark-yet Christmas eve kind of thing to do to Duo, and he looked around for the presents. He was pretty excited about the present part. It was kind of cool to open presents with his friends when it wasn’t Christmas yet (like cheating!), but since he wouldn’t get to see them on Christmas, they had to do it early. ‘I thought we were gonna s’change gifts?’ he asked.

‘Not yet,’ Trowa told him, going back to helping with the Ferris wheel now that he didn’t have to be the cat guard. ‘Quatre isn’t here yet.’

Well, that made sense. They had to all be there, of course. Heero’s Dad called them the Impossible Five, after all. And Impossible Four just wasn’t the same. So even if Duo was excited, he was a big boy and knew they had to wait for Quatre.

‘Can’t we call him and tell him to hurry up?’ he asked, and Heero sighed.

‘Trowa’s Mom said no.’

And you didn’t argue with Trowa’s Mom. Or his sister either. Trowa’s sister was almost a teen-ager and she was just scary.

So Duo put his little sack of presents next to the TV so they wouldn’t get mixed up with the regular presents, and went to help build the circus. Wufei kept calling it The Greatest Show On Earth in a very important voice, and Duo didn’t understand why it was funny, but it was, and they all had the giggles.

Trowa’s Mom was baking cookies for Christmas dinner, and even let them each have a single one, hot out of the oven, so everybody was pretty happy with the hot cookies and the tinker toy Greatest Show On Earth, and the Christmas music playing. It was almost, Duo thought, like Christmas day could be if his Mom would just let him have his friends come over too. Only it wouldn’t be just one cookie, it would be a whole bunch of cookies and they’d stay hot and fresh all day and it would be awesome.

But then Quatre finally got there, dropped off by his big Uncle Rashid who kind of scared Duo, though Duo wouldn’t ever tell anybody that. Well… maybe Heero, but Heero was good at keeping secrets, but even Heero might think he was a sissy, because Heero wasn’t afraid of anything… not even of his own creepy Uncle Jay. But anyway… Quatre got there and the Impossible Five were all together and it should have made it present time, but…

Quatre wasn’t happy. Quatre was late and he didn’t even want the cookie that Trowa’s Mom tried to give him, and it was still hot and everything. Quatre didn’t giggle when Wufei said ‘Greatest Show On Earth’, even in his deepest, most important funny voice. Quatre wasn’t even excited about the present s’change or anything.

‘You eat too many cookies?’ Trowa asked. Trowa knew what happened when you ate too many cookies because he’d sneaked a whole plate to his room last Christmas and ate them all by himself and hadn’t wanted cookies again until way after Fourth of July.

‘No,’ Quatre said, ‘I don’t want any cookies is all.’

That seemed to Duo to be an awful thing to say, because really… no cookies? Who would say such a thing? But then… maybe Quatre was sick? Duo went and sat down next to where Quatre was and put his hand on his forehead like Duo’s Mom did his sometimes. Though… Duo didn’t know what Quatre’s forehead was supposed to feel like, so he asked, ‘Are you sick?’

‘Sick of Christmas,’ Quatre grumbled and looked like he might cry.

All four of his friends couldn’t help but gasp at the… as Duo’s Dad would say… horror of it all. Sick of Christmas? Sick of Christmas?!

‘But why?’ Heero wanted to know.

‘Aren’t you getting any presents?’ Wufei wanted to know.

‘You sure you’re not sick?’ Trowa wanted to know.

‘Are you crazy?’ Duo wanted to know and Trowa smacked him.

And then Quatre did start to cry. Duo rubbed the back of his head and gave Trowa a mean look, but Trowa was busy patting Quatre’s arm and didn’t see it. ‘My Daddy isn’t going to be here for Christmas!’ Quatre wailed, ‘It can’t be Christmas without my Daddy!’

Duo didn’t know what to say, because when he tried to think of Christmas without his own Dad it made his tummy hurt. And Quatre didn’t have a Mom, just his Uncles and that just made Duo sad too.

‘Why not?’ Wufei said, looking confused. Quatre’s Dad wasn’t home a lot, and when he was, he showed up in a cool looking uniform and never got to stay long. Duo kind of knew that Quatre’s Dad was in the army, and he kind of knew what that meant, but not really. It mostly meant that Quatre’s Dad wore a uniform to work and he worked somewhere that was really far away. Like the UPS driver.

‘The War,’ Quatre said and it was that bad word that Duo only heard his Mom and Dad use when they thought he was in bed asleep. But if Duo was really, really quiet and moved really, really slow he could crawl out of his room and sneak into the dining room where you could see the TV from under the table. And sometimes he heard grown up talk because his parents didn’t know he was there, though most of the time it was boring stuff about taxes and cleaning out the gutters. But sometimes his folks would talk about something called The War. Duo wasn’t sure exactly what it meant, but he was pretty sure there was fighting and bad stuff happened that made his Mom sound sad.

‘Oh,’ Trowa said, just as though that explained everything, and Duo didn’t want to ask any questions in case he was the only one who didn’t really understand.

So they sat for a little bit while Trowa patted Quatre’s arm until Quatre stopped crying and then they decided they would take the Ferris wheel apart and build something else instead.

‘Let’s build a zoo!’ Trowa said.

‘I want to make a whole town!’ Duo said.

‘We could build a pyramid!’ Wufei said.

‘How about a bigger Ferris wheel?’ Heero said.

‘I want to build a rocket ship,’ Quatre said, and he had the look on his face that made his Uncle Rashid start asking questions. ‘And fly it to where my Daddy is.’

There weren’t enough Tinker Toys to make a rocket ship big enough to hold them all though, so in the end they just made a cat corral that Bully-boy knocked down anyway. But he made the funny hissy noise again, without Duo even having to pet his tail, so it was still fun.

Then Trowa’s Mom said it was almost time to ‘fold up’ and if they wanted to do the present s’change, they needed to ‘hop to’. Sometimes Duo thought Trowa’s Mom was weird, but figured it might be part of the crazy cat lady thing. Did he really have to hop across the room to get his bag of presents? But hadn’t they just gotten in trouble last week for jumping in the living room while playing the skydive game off the back of the couch? Wasn’t that the same thing?

Duo just chewed his lip and waited for somebody else to hop first.

Instead, Trowa said, ‘We should wait.’

‘Wait?’ Wufei wanted to know, ‘What for?’

‘For Quatre’s father to come home,’ Trowa said, all excited about his idea. ‘Then we can all have Christmas together!’

Duo kind of wanted to argue about that idea, but then Heero got excited too. ‘If we moved Christmas, it would mean more days off school!’

‘It would?’ Duo said, and decided he might like that part pretty good.

‘Yeah!’ Wufei agreed. ‘We’re already off school for Christmas… they can’t make us go back until Christmas comes!’

And then Quatre was grinning and happy for the first time that day and Duo thought it might be a pretty good idea after all. What his Dad called a ‘win win’. Maybe if they stalled Christmas for a few more days, it would give their folks time to buy more presents too! That made it a ‘win win WIN’!

So when Trowa’s Mom came to tell them it was time to ‘fold up’, they all took their own little bags of friend-presents home with them to hold for the new Christmas eve.

When Duo got home, his Mom helped him out of his jacket and boots and gave his bag a funny look. ‘Honey… you boys didn’t have a fight, did you?’ She wanted to know. ‘Why didn’t you open your presents to each other?’

‘We don’t fight, Mom,’ Duo told her with a roll of his eyes like his Dad did sometimes to show that he thought his Mom was being silly without actually saying it. ‘We just moved Christmas.’

His Mom stopped hanging up his jacket and gave him a look that was even funnier than the first one. ‘You… what?’

‘Quatre’s Dad isn’t home yet,’ Duo explained while he pulled off his wet socks. ‘He’s away at The War. So we moved Christmas, because Quatre was sad.’ Duo decided not to mention the part about school. Or the extra presents. He thought that might be something that should be just between the Impossible Five.

‘Sweetheart,’ his Mom said in that tone of voice like she used when she caught him trying to make a parachute out of his bed sheet, ‘you can’t just… move Christmas.’

‘But why not?’ he asked, kind of confused about that part, since they’d already decided on it.

‘Well,’ his Mom said, ‘you just can’t.’ Which didn’t sound any better than the because it’s good for you part when he asked why he had to eat his broccoli.

‘But why?’ he asked, and made his Mom sigh. It was the sigh he usually got right before the louder sigh that he got right before he got in trouble.

‘Because…’ she said, and threw her hands in the air. ‘Because you can’t just go moving Christmas!’

Duo didn’t really want to get the louder sigh that came before the trouble part, but this wasn’t good. It could mess up the whole plan and Quatre was counting on the plan. The guys were counting on the plan. They were counting on him!

‘But…. We already did!’ he said and held his breath waiting for the loud sigh.

His Mom just stood for a minute, her hands on her hips… like she had to think about it. Duo thought that might be good… maybe there really wasn’t a reason and she’d change her mind. But then the loud sigh came anyway.

‘Duo, think about it,’ she said. ‘Santa Claus is in charge of Christmas, not you boys. He… uh… has a schedule and everything. You can’t go changing things now.’

Oh. Well that made sense. They hadn’t really thought about that part. Things were, as Heero’s Dad said, about to get comp’icated.

‘I gotta call Heero!’ Duo said, because if anybody could figure this out, it was Heero.

‘It’s kind of late…’ his Mom started to say, but then sighed again and kind of laughed, ‘but I suppose you need to un-cancel Christmas.’

Duo rolled his eyes again (they never canceled it!) but didn’t say anything, because he wanted his Mom to dial the number for him in cause Heero’s creepy Uncle Jay answered the phone. Duo didn’t know who she got, but they talked for a few minutes and there was a lot of laughing before his Mom finally gave him the phone and it was Heero on the other end.

‘We have a problem,’ Heero said, all serious, when they could finally talk. ‘My Dad says we can’t change the date.’

‘I know!’ Duo said, all in a hurry with his news. ‘My Mom says we’re not in charge of Christmas… Santa is!’

Heero thought about that for a minute. ‘Dad says Christmas has to be on the twenty-fifth…’

‘But why?’ Duo wanted to know, ‘Easter isn’t on a day!’ He knew that because his Mom always had to look it up. Heck, sometimes it wasn’t even in the same month!

‘I don’t know,’ Heero admitted, ‘maybe rabbits just aren’t good with dates?’

So Santa was better with dates than the Easter bunny maybe? That made sense, because Santa had elves and reindeer and all that other help and Christmas was kind of a bigger holiday. The Easter Bunny just had to do candy and eggs. And maybe Easter moved around because the eggs just weren’t ready? So maybe…

‘We have to ask Santa to move Christmas,’ Duo decided, because really… that’s what his Mom had said. Santa was in charge of the whole thing.

‘Yeah!’ Heero agreed, and his voice was the one that Duo’s Dad called his ‘termined’ voice. ‘I gotta call Trowa,’ he said, and then whispered, ‘Watch for… The Signal.’

‘Roger,’ Duo whispered back, because they’d seen it on their favorite police cartoon and it sounded cool. Then they hung up.

Duo wanted to run right off to his room, but his Mom made him sit down and eat his dinner first and she and his Dad laughed about how fast he ate because he was in such a hurry to go to bed so Christmas would come. Duo didn’t argue, because he didn’t want his Mom sighing at him any more. He even hung his stocking like usual, even though he knew it was too early now, that Christmas wouldn’t be coming for another week. He rushed through his teeth-brushing and his good-nights, and finally he was in his room with the door shut, all ‘tucked in’.

He held his breath and listened for the squeaky board that told him his Mom was going down the stairs and then he counted to ten twice (because Heero said you had to count to twenty, but Duo could never remember what came after twelve, so he just did ten over again), and then he slipped out of bed, dug his flashlight out from under it, and went to sit on the trunk by his bedroom window.

Heero’s house was way around the block from his, but their backyards almost touched. Behind Duo’s house was mean old lady Une, and Heero’s house was right next to hers. From Duo’s bedroom window, he could just see Heero’s bedroom window in the winter when the leaves were all off the trees. Duo was a little worried that he might have missed The Signal, so he flashed his own flashlight just once, to let Heero know he was there and watching. He grinned when he got a flash in return.

It took a little while after that, but Duo just waited because he knew that Heero was sneaking down to the window at the end of the hall where he could see Trowa’s house. It wouldn’t take Trowa as long to pass The Signal to Wufei, because Trowa had a corner bedroom with two windows. Then The Signal would have to go to Quatre and then come all the way back to him.

It seemed like he sat there for a very long time before The Signal shone out of Heero’s window again. But then Duo was confused… it wasn’t the two flashes signal that meant good night, and it wasn’t the three flashes that meant Heero’s Mom was about to catch him out of bed, and it wasn’t the bat signal with the piece of red tissue paper over the lens that meant danger! (they’d never had to use that one), but Heero just shined the light steady at him. Duo finally flashed back, just to let Heero know he was there, and then Heero moved the light down until it was shining into Duo’s backyard.

When Duo looked down, there was Wufei standing in the snow under his window! Duo couldn’t believe it and turned his own flashlight that way to see better. When he did, Heero’s flashlight turned off and Wufei started waving his arms. Duo gave a little wave back, and then Wufei made the ‘come here’ wave.

Duo just sat for a minute. Come here? Come here?! For a second, he thought maybe Wufei was crazy, but then it all came clear in his head and he almost giggled. They had to ask Santa to move Christmas, right? So that meant…

They were going to the North Pole!

Duo flashed his light at Wufei and then went to get dressed. He tried to hurry, but it was hard to do that and be quiet too, but Duo was afraid the guys wouldn’t wait for him if he took too long. When he was all dressed (two pairs of socks!) and ready to go, he grabbed his emergency adventure backpack (all the guys had one), went back to the window one more time to check that Wufei was still waiting, and then snuck out of his room.

It seemed to Duo it took an hour to make the slow creep down the stairs, being careful of the squeaky boards, but his folks were watching an action show on the TV and there was lots of shooting and yelling. He finally got to the bottom and snuck around to the kitchen and then into the pantry, and finally out the back door and then he ran to meet Wufei and they giggled together and headed for Heero’s house through the backyard. Heero was already outside, waiting by the secret clubhouse that Heero’s Dad had made them out of the giant box their new fridge had come in.

When Heero saw them coming through the line of bushes, he waved them to follow and they all headed for Trowa’s house. Their feet made crunchy sounds in the snow that seemed as loud as a herd of elephants, but nobody seemed to hear them and Duo almost got the giggles thinking about it, but Heero was all serious, so Duo tried to be serious too.

When they got to Trowa’s house, Quatre was already there and Trowa had his sled all piled with stuff and the two family dogs, Buster and Bubba tied to the front. Duo got excited about the dog sled (like real adventurers!), but everybody shushed him and then the Impossible Five (plus two), headed over to the school lot where the baseball diamond was hidden by the snow, so they would be away from all the houses where somebody might hear them.

‘Are we really going to the North Pole?’ Quatre wanted to know once they were standing where they thought the pitcher’s mound ought to be, and it made Duo feel happy that he sounded happy and excited again. Duo didn’t like sad Quatre.

‘Yep,’ Trowa said, having to tug on Buster’s collar to keep him and Bubba headed in the same direction. ‘Heero said Duo’s Mom said we have to ask Santa to move Christmas.’

‘Yeah!’ Duo chimed in, because really… it was his Mom and all. ‘Mom said he has a s’hedule and we gotta let him know to change it.’

Wufei nodded. ‘I called Grandpa Long to tell him why we wouldn’t be there tomorrow, and he told me good luck!’

Then Heero looked very pleased with himself and pulled a paper out of his coat pocket. ‘And I got a map!’

‘Cool!’ they all said together, because they could see that there was a big red X marked at the top.

‘My Dad gave it to me last year, when I wanted to know where the North Pole was. He said it was somewhere past the top edge of the map!’ Heero said, very proud that he remembered he had it.

Duo went to look at the map with Heero and just saw a bunch of lines and tiny, tiny words he couldn’t read. ‘But… where are we?’ he wanted to know.

‘The blue X down here,’ Heero said, and pointed to a spot that just looked like a bunch of lines and squares and Duo looked around, not sure at all that he could tell.

‘So we just have to go north until we get to the edge of the map, and then go north some more,’ Heero explained and Duo grinned happily, deciding that it didn’t matter if he could figure out the map, as long as Heero could.

‘Ok! Let’s go!’ he cried, and they all shushed him.

‘But…’ Trowa said, sounding kind of like he did the day the teacher asked him to say what was 3 plus 4 plus 5 in front of the whole class, ‘which way is north?’

Then it was Wufei’s turn to look all proud and he pulled something out of his pocket. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I got this. My Grandpa gave me a compass for my birthday!’

‘Cool!’ they all said together and gathered around to watch as Wufei held the compass in the middle of his hand. The needle on the dial wiggled and jiggled and finally stopped moving pointed directly across the diamond and down Hamburg Street.

‘Hey,’ Quatre said, his eyes getting big like the cartoon characters did on TV right before the light bulb appeared above their heads. ‘That’s where the Northgate mall is! That’s why they call it that!’

It made Trowa grin. ‘That’s three things that says we’re going the right way!’ and he grabbed Buster’s collar and Wufei grabbed Bubba’s and off they went across the ball field and down Hamburg Street (though they stayed in the grass away from the street because they were big boys and knew that wasn’t safe).

It took a long time to walk the four blocks to the mall because Buster and Bubba kept wanting to stop to sniff in people’s yards, but there wasn’t anything good to smell in the mall parking lot and they ‘made good time’ until they got to the edge. They stopped there to take a rest while Heero looked at the map and Wufei looked at the compass and Trowa pulled out a thermos that had hot chocolate in it. They all sat on the edge of the sled and passed it around to share.

‘Look!’ Heero said, suddenly all excited, and held the map up, pointing at a spot and then pointing up at the big sign out on the road. ‘They match! We’re right here! The mall is on the edge!’

‘We gotta be half way there at least!’ Duo cried, and they all shushed him.

Wufei pointed out across the field, ‘my compass says north is that way, maybe the north pole is on the other side of those trees?’

‘We should keep going,’ Quatre said, looking up at the sky the way the cowboys did in the movies, ‘it’s getting late.’

Duo looked up at the sky too, but all he saw was clouds and snow and a few stars, and didn’t know how he was supposed to tell what time it was. Though he supposed it was dark and that was good enough.

Buster and Bubba didn’t want to get up yet, so Trowa went back to the sled and dug around until he came out with a box of dog biscuits, and then Buster and Bubba were excited to go on too. Though Duo thought it was kinda mean the way Trowa walked ahead with the treats and wouldn’t give them out right away.

They didn’t make ‘good time’ going across the field, because it was rough and bumpy and full of old corn stalks that tried to trip them. But Buster and Bubba wanted those dog treats real bad, and kept going behind Trowa, who was going behind Wufei, who had out the compass and was pointing the way.

Duo just tried to not fall down, and wished that his backpack wasn’t quite so heavy.

When they finally reached the end of the field and climbed up onto the grass at the edge, Trowa gave Buster and Bubba one treat each and they had to wait while they ate them, snuffling around in the snow and grass for every last crumb. There was a lot of tail wagging.

‘Which way now?’ Quatre wanted to know and Wufei pointed into the pine trees. It seemed kind of dark and scary to Duo, but Heero gave a tug on Buster’s collar and Duo didn’t want to be left behind, so he scrambled up to take over Bubba’s collar.

At first it was kind of hard to get the sled between the trees, but then Wufei found a path and Buster and Bubba decided the path was the way to go, and followed it without too much pulling. Though the smells must have been way more interesting than the parking lot, because they both had their noses to the ground and snuffled a lot.

Then the trees began to get thin again and Wufei, who was out front with the compass, suddenly put a hand up for them to stop (Though Quatre didn’t see it and almost ran into him, and Trowa too), and whispered, ‘I see something!’

‘What is it?’ Trowa whispered back, and though Duo couldn’t see past Wufei and Trowa and Quatre and Bubba’s head… he could hear something.

Something was coming down the path from the other direction and Duo was just starting to think that maybe this adventuring stuff wasn’t so much fun after all when Quatre whispered, ‘It’s a deer!’

Deer weren’t all that scary! Duo saw them sometimes out in the fields when his Mom drove him to school in the morning, and they always stood real still and his Mom said they were trying not to be seen. So Duo figured they must be pretty shy. ‘I wanna see too!’ and he let go of Bubba to go up with the others. The deer wasn’t far in front of Wufei and it was… really big. Bigger than Duo had thought, and he was kind of not so sure if maybe he should be scared after all.

‘Heero…?’ he said, because Heero wasn’t scared of anything, and he figured if Heero was scared too, then Duo was going to be really scared. But Heero was grinning real big.

‘That’s not a deer!’ he said, ‘that’s a reindeer!’

When Duo looked again, he had to admit that it didn’t really look like the deer he saw with his Mom. Those deer really were smaller, and their feet were smaller and if they had antlers, they weren’t such great big antlers.

Then behind the reindeer, another reindeer appeared, and then another, and then another!

Duo got really excited then. ‘How many are there?’ he asked, though he just knew how many there would be. Quatre (who was very good with numbers) began to count and when he got done, he was excited too.

‘Eight!’ he said, and then looked again. ‘No! Nine!’

And every kid in the world knew what nine reindeer meant.

‘We found the North Pole!’ Trowa said and they would have cheered, except they were kind of afraid of scaring the reindeer.

But the reindeer didn’t seem afraid at all, and kind of seemed like they weren’t too happy to find the boys in their back yard. They kept looking at each other like they were trying to make up their minds what to do.

‘What if they tell on us?’ Wufei wanted to know and Duo remembered the Rudolf special they watched every year, and remembered that Santa could talk to the reindeer. That might not be a good thing.

‘What do we do?’ Quatre asked, all breathless, and Duo just knew he was about to get upset. ‘We have to get through to Santa!’

Trowa was quick to run back to the sled and after some more digging around, he pulled out a basket and grinning real big, showed them the apples and carrots inside.

‘You thought of everything!’ Duo exclaimed and they all reached in to grab something to feed to the reindeer. Ahead of them, on the path, one of the reindeer shook its head, and there was the ring of bells. Duo decided he didn’t really want to go first.

Heero (who really wasn’t afraid of anything if you asked Duo), went slowly toward the first reindeer, the biggest one, and held out his hand to be sniffed. That’s how Duo’s Dad said you were supposed to greet new animals (though Duo usually couldn’t manage it; he got too excited and wanted to hug first), and the reindeer (Duo just knew it was Rudolph!) reached his big head down and sniffed at Heero’s hand. Then Heero gave Rudolph a carrot.

‘He likes it!’ Quatre whispered, when Rudolph began to crunch happily, and the other reindeer looked interested.

‘Quick!’ Wufei whispered, ‘put the apples over here so they’re off the path!’

So moving slowly, and holding out the apples and carrots for the reindeer to see, they put them down in a pile beside the path. The reindeer very happily followed.

‘It’s working!’ Heero said, and they almost forgot that they wanted to go down the path, while they watched the reindeer pick through the apples and carrots.

But Quatre remembered and whispered, ‘Hurry!’ and they grabbed their sled and dogs and tried to be sneaky while the reindeer weren’t paying attention. Buster and Bubba seemed kind of nervous about the big reindeer, so it didn’t take much pulling at all to get them to go on.

‘This way!’ Wufei whispered, but he wasn’t pointing at the compass, he was pointing at the snow and they hurried down the path following the tracks of the reindeer, only backward. Duo thought that was awfully smart of Wufei… the reindeer had to have come from Santa’s place, so the tracks would lead them right there!

He looked back once and couldn’t help but think the reindeer looked like they were talking together over the pile of apples. The Rudolph one was watching them go, so Duo waved goodbye, just to be polite.

At least the pine trees were gone, and it wasn’t so dark and scary anymore, and the path was a lot better than that rough old corn field. Duo thought they must be getting close, because they had to be just forever past the edge of Heero’s map by now! Just when he was wishing they might take another little break, Heero said, ‘Look!’

The sky had cleared up and the moon and snow made it easy to see that the reindeer tracks led right to a barn. But not just any old barn, not like the barn at Duo’s Aunt Helen’s farm, this barn was all fancy with windows and wooden decorations, and there was a huge Christmas wreath on the barn doors. The tracks went right inside, so the boys went right inside too.

There were stalls full of clean straw (reindeer would know better than to poop there like Aunt Helen’s cow did), and harness with bells hanging by each one. There were buckets of corn and buckets of water, and it was the neatest, cleanest barn that Duo had ever seen, and he’d seen two!

‘This stall says Comet on it!’ Heero said.

‘I think this one says Donner!’ Wufei said.

‘This one starts with a B!’ Trowa said.

‘There are nine stalls!’ Quatre said.

‘We found it!’ Duo said, and nobody shushed him.

Then Quatre went and peeked out a window on the other side of the barn and his voice got all quiet again. ‘Look!’ he whispered and they all went to peek too.

On the other side of the barn was a yard and there sat the biggest, fanciest sleigh that any of them had ever seen. It was red and gold and white and silver and gleamed in the moonlight like Quatre’s Uncle Rashid’s new car had the day it was delivered. And it was piled in the back with sack after sack of what they just knew were Christmas presents.

‘We made it in time!’ Quatre said, getting excited again. ‘Santa hasn’t left yet!’

Duo had been so excited that for a minute he’d forgotten what their mission was. He was just as sure as he could be that they were right there at the North Pole, but it was one of those ‘Wow!’ things that he wished he had just a few minutes to think about, but he remembered that they were in a hurry.

‘There!’ he said, thinking all of a sudden to look at something besides the sleigh. ‘That has to be Santa’s house!’

It made Duo think of the gingerbread house that Heero’s Mom had made one year. Bright and bigger than life, but cozy and tiny too. It didn’t look nearly as big as Quatre’s house, but somehow it was… what his Mom called ‘pressive.

‘We gotta hurry!’ Trowa said and he ran back to their own sled to give Buster and Bubba both two treats each and he told them very, very sternly to ‘Stay!’ but Duo didn’t think they were paying much attention because they seemed to like the straw and they were already snuffling after crumbs.

Wufei led the way and they ran out of the barn around to the sleigh, Duo really kind of wanted to try climbing up into the big seat, just to see what it felt like, but knew they didn’t have time. It had to be really late, by then… nine o’clock, at least!

There were a bunch of tracks in the snow by the sleigh and Wufei said, ‘This way!’ in a whisper that was kind of loud. The tracks weren’t reindeer tracks, but more like people tracks and they led right to a door. They went to the door and then just stopped and stared.

‘Should we… knock?’ Quatre wanted to know, and that did seem like the polite thing to do. Duo didn’t even go in Heero’s house without knocking on the door and Heero’s Dad said he ‘practically lived there’.

‘But what if nobody answers?’ Trowa said and that made sense too. If they knocked, then to stay polite, they’d have to wait. And if nobody answered, they might end up standing there all night!

Wufei went over to the side of the house and peeked in a window. ‘I don’t see anybody,’ he said and Duo began to chew his lip, not knowing what to do.

But then Heero got his ‘termined face and said, ‘We’re on a mission!’ and he reached out and opened the door. For a minute they all stood there, kind of waiting to see if something bad would happen, but nothing did. Heero took a deep breath (Duo saw him) and walked in. They were quick to follow, because everybody who ever watched Scooby-doo knew that bad things happened if you split up.

‘It’s… it’s the workshop!’ Trowa said, looking around with his eyes all wide.

‘Wow.’ Duo said and everybody nodded.

It was like the biggest, most awesomest toy store in the whole world. Only the presents were all special because nothing was in a box like the toys were at the toy store. There were sacks everywhere and toys, and candy, and wreaths and just… everything Duo had ever seen that was about Christmas. There was even a funny little crooked Christmas tree! A kid sized tree! Or… Elf sized.

‘Wow,’ Duo said again, because… elves. Real elves. Elves… were real!

Quatre was hugging a teddy bear and Trowa had found some candy canes, and Duo was just thinking that a candy cane would be pretty good to eat, because all this adventuring kind of made a guy hungry, when Heero said…

‘Uh-oh…’

Uh-oh was not a word you wanted to hear when you were on a mission (or an adventure). Uh-oh was the word the heroes in the movies said right before the bridge fell down, or the boat started to sink.

They all turned to look at Heero, but it was Wufei who pointed to the window, so then they all turned to look at the window and… there was a reindeer looking in at them.

‘Uh-oh,’ Duo said too, even though Heero had already said it, but it just seemed like a double uh-oh kind of thing.

But then there was a new voice and that new voice said, ‘Holy cra…. Christmas!’ in a really, really surprised kind of way.

That was when Duo got to see his first ever, for real Elf.

He felt kind of glad that the other guys turned just as fast and kind of bunched together, just like he did, because it was a pretty scary thing and it made him feel better to not be the only one who thought so.

Elves were not very tall, but they didn’t really have big heads like they did in all the Christmas cartoons, and Duo was kind of glad of that, because that would have been weird. They did have pointed ears though (or the one standing at the top of the stairs, with his hands on his hips, staring down at them did at least), and they did wear the funny little shoes with the curly toes.

Quatre very carefully put the teddy bear he’d been hugging back into the toy pile.

‘Who?’ the Elf kind of sputtered, ‘Where the heck…? What are…?’

Duo hoped the Elf didn’t know too many more W words.

‘We have to see Santa!’ Quatre said all in a rush, because maybe he was tired of waiting for the Elf to finish a sentence too.

‘Yeah!’ Trowa said.

‘We gotta stop him!’ Wufei said.

‘We’re on a mission!’ Heero said.

‘Mr. Winner isn’t home!’ Duo said.

The Elf just stared at them. Then the Elf put his hand over his eyes. ‘There is so not room in the schedule for this,’ he said, but it didn’t really seem like he was talking to them. It kind of seemed to Duo like when his Mom said she had to ‘take a minute’ .

‘Let me get this straight,’ the Elf finally said, moving his hand so he could look at them again. ‘You’re here to… stop Christmas? Because we don’t see a lot of that.’

‘No!’ Duo was quick to tell him (why did people keep getting that part wrong?), ‘we just want to change it!’

‘Change…?’ the Elf began, but then stopped and threw his hands in the air. ‘No… you know what? I’m just a doll clothes designer; I don’t get paid enough for this.’

And just like that, he waved them up the stairs and led them into another room. Duo had been kind of nervous that there would be more Elves, but the room was empty. The Elf (he wondered what his name was), sat them all down at a table.

‘Look,’ he said while he rummaged around in a desk looking for something, ‘you kids seem to be having a little trouble getting yourselves… organized. You can’t be babbling at the Big Man like a paddle of ducklings.‘ While he talked (and Duo kind of thought he was doing his own babbling, because he wasn’t making a lot of sense), he was handing out sheets of paper and pencils. ‘Why don’t you work out just what it is you want to ask Santa for, and make some lists?’

Lists? They didn’t need to make lists… they knew what they were there for! Duo thought the Elf was the one making things… comp’icated.

When the paper was all passed around, the Elf stopped and looked them over, while they all sat and stared at him (he wasn’t like the Elves in the movies, and he wasn’t like the Elves in the cartoons and Duo was wondering why fake Elves weren’t like real Elves if there were real Elves to be like, but it kind of made his head hurt working it out.)

‘Mr. Elf,’ Quatre said, and Duo could hear the upset trying to come out again. ‘Are… are we going to get to see Santa? It’s really, really important.’

The Elf got a funny little smile then, the first they’d seen, and it made him seem less like Duo’s Mom seemed right before she needed some chocolate. ‘Well, aren’t you the little charmer?’ the Elf muttered, but then patted Quatre’s head. ‘If you can get past the Lady in Charge… we’ll see.’

But then he looked all stern again. ‘Now you just stay right here. Don’t move, and I’ll be right back. Work on those lists.’

He went out a door that was different from the one they came in, and he shut it really quiet like, but then Duo was pretty sure he heard the sound of running.

Duo turned back around and said (in a very quiet voice, in case the Elf was still listening), ‘He was kinda… weird.’

Heero nodded a lot, but Wufei frowned. ‘That’s not nice,’ he said, and it made Duo feel bad. It wasn’t his fault the Elf was weird! It made him feel kind of pouty, but then he remembered that they were at the North Pole and maybe he shouldn’t have said a thing that might not have been nice (even if it wasn’t his fault).

‘Sorry,’ he muttered, and chewed on his lip. Quatre patted his shoulder, but they forgot about it when Trowa spoke up.

‘What are we supposed to write?’ he wanted to know.

‘What we want to ask Santa for,’ Wufei said, though he looked kind of doubtful.

‘But,’ Duo said, ‘I sent Santa my list right after Thanksgiving!’ His Mom had taken him to the post office to mail the letter and everything, with the special Christmas stamp on the red envelop even. Duo didn’t want to make another list! That was like… like having to do homework twice!

‘But,’ Quatre said, his voice kind of small, ‘that’s not why we came… right?’

‘But the Elf doesn’t know that!’ Heero said all at once, like he’d just figured something out.

‘He thinks we’re just kids!’ Trowa said, catching on to what Heero meant.

‘He doesn’t know we’re on a mission!’ Wufei said, not sounding all doubty anymore.

‘But… I thought Santa knew everything?’ Duo said, still feeling confused.

That made the other four stare at him for a minute before Heero figured that part out too, ‘But Elves don’t!’

And then they all grinned, back on track, and bent over their papers to make sure they were done before the Elf came back.

When the door opened again though, it wasn’t the same Elf at all, it was an Elf that was kind of bigger, and sort of looked like he could be an in-charge Elf. His hat was fancier anyway, and his curly shoes even had bells on them. There were two other Elves behind him, peeking around him with wide eyes.

‘Well trim my tree,’ the big Elf said.

‘There really are kids in the Elf hall!’ the peeking Elf on the right said.

‘Where’d they come from?’ The peeking left Elf said.

Wufei stood up and said in his very serious voice, ‘We come in peace.’

Nobody quite seemed to know what to say after that, so the Elves stared at the boys, and the boys stared back.

Finally (about the time that Duo was thinking maybe they should just turn around and go find their sled and go home), Quatre stood up too and said, ‘Please Mr. Elf… we have an important message for Santa.’

The big Elf (Duo wondered if maybe, being the in-charge Elf, if he wasn’t more of a Major Elf, or even a Captain Elf, more than a Mr. Elf), kind of huffed and puffed his cheeks out and took off his hat and rubbed his hand through his hair.

‘Well now,’ he finally said. ‘That’s all well and good, but you have to get past the Missus first. She does all of Santa’s scheduling.’

So they all jumped up, gathered their papers and ran to line up in front of the Captain Elf (Duo had decided that a Captain was better than a Major) and said all together, ‘Ok!’

Captain Elf blinked at them for a moment, and looked kind of like Trowa’s cats looked when they all five ran after them at the same time. ‘Well now! I say when we go down to see Mrs. Claus!’ he said, kind of stern like, and then, ‘And I say we’re going right now!’

So off they trooped, the Captain Elf leading the way, and the other two following behind; the Impossible Five in the middle. It kind of made Duo feel like getting marched to the Principal’s office, except the two Elves in back kept whispering and giggling behind them.

‘Where are all the other Elves?’ Trowa asked.

‘At the wrap party,’ Right Elf said (only he was on the left now).

‘But… shouldn’t they be getting ready to leave?’ Heero asked.

‘Pish,’ said Left Elf (who was really right now), ‘all the time in the world yet.’

‘But it’s late!’ Duo said. ‘And Santa has to go everywhere!’

Right Elf snickered. ‘Can’t start until it’s midnight in the very last place in the world.’  
Quatre turned around and walked backward to look at them with his are you crazy? look. ‘But… there won’t be enough time!’

Left Elf gave him a wink that Duo just only saw out of the corner of his eyes, because he was still walking forward, and only turning his head. ‘We just stop time until we’re done,’ he said.

‘I knew it!’ Wufei said, and Duo remembered when Wufei had argued with Meilan in class about whether Santa was real or not. Duo couldn’t wait to tell her how wrong she was. Though… maybe he’d let Wufei tell her, since she was kind of mean and scary sometimes.

‘Enough talking,’ Captain Elf said, and Duo hoped that Left and Right Elves weren’t going to be in trouble for telling Santa’s secrets.

But then the long walk was over (how could there be so many halls and stairs and doors in a house that wasn’t even as big as Quatre’s??), and Captain Elf was leading them into the biggest kitchen Duo had ever seen.

It must be, he thought, where every Christmas cookie in the world came from. Where every Christmas everything came from! Donuts and cookies and cakes and pies and things that Duo didn’t even know what they were, but he wanted to try them all the same, even if he was what his Mom called a ‘picky eater’. He didn’t care; the kitchen smelled like every good thing to eat in the entire universe, and Duo wanted to try it all.

‘Wow,’ they all said together, and Duo wanted to ask the Captain some more questions, but he was gone and instead there was a lady in a flour covered apron who just had to be Mrs. Claus.

‘Gracious!’ said Mrs. Claus, ‘Visitors? On Christmas eve? Where on earth did you young gentlemen come from?’

‘The south,’ Wufei said importantly.

‘The Elf hall,’ Heero said practically.

‘The other side of Northgate mall,’ Quatre said helpfully.

‘Hamburg Street,’ Trowa said proudly.

‘Uhm… my room?’ Duo said, thinking that was where it kind of started. At least, for him.

Mrs. Claus seemed kind of confused, but she didn’t rub her face or hair like the Elves had, she just said ‘Gracious!’ again.

‘Please, Mrs. Claus,’ Quatre said, ‘we need to see Santa really bad!’

‘Well now,’ said Mrs. Claus, wiping her hands on her apron just the way Duo’s Grandma did, ‘why don’t you boys sit down here and have some cookies and hot chocolate with me, and you can tell me all about it.’

That sounded like a fine idea to Duo, because all the adventuring and mission stuff had made him very hungry, and all the wonderful smells were making his tummy talk to him.

Mrs. Claus handed around the plate and they all rushed to sit at the big table with their star shaped cookies.

‘Please Mrs. Claus,’ Quatre said between bites. ‘We have to get Santa to move Christmas!’

‘We think a week will do it,’ Trowa chimed in.

‘My Mom said we had to ask Santa because it’s his schedule,’ Duo said, trying hard not to talk with his mouth full.

‘It can’t be Christmas yet,’ Heero said, ‘because Mr. Winner is in the Air Force.’

‘This is the best Christmas cookie, ever,’ Wufei said, and Mrs. Claus held the plate out so he could take another one.

‘Gracious,’ Mrs. Claus said, and kind of looked like she wanted to rub her face like the Elves did, but she didn’t. Just adjusted her little glasses and then took her own cookie. ‘Didn’t you boys kind of wait until the last minute?’

‘We didn’t mean to!’ Heero said, and seemed kind of embarrassed. ‘We would have been here sooner, but we didn’t know!’ And they all nodded to back Heero up.

‘Well, you have come a long way,’ she said, kind of like she was talking to herself (just like Trowa’s Mom did, and it made Duo look around for cats). ‘And I certainly can’t make a lick of sense out of what you’re saying… best let Santa sort you out.’

They gave out with a cheer and started to scramble down off their chairs, but Mrs. Claus waved them to sit still. ‘Finish your cookies, and I’ll get one of the Elves to take you down. ‘

Since Wufei had gotten a second cookie, Duo didn’t feel at all bad about grabbing another, and everybody else did too.

‘Best ever!’ Wufei mumbled around his mouthful. ‘In the whole world!’

Mrs. Claus was at the door, talking to someone and Duo heard something about reindeer, because Mrs. Claus said, ‘…passing the buck…’. The someone turned out to be one of the Peeking Elves, though Duo had lost track of Right and Left.

‘Come along, gentlemen!’ said Peeking, and they stuffed the last of their cookies in their mouths, said a crumby ‘Thank you!’ to Mrs. Claus, and rushed to follow their guide.

Peeking led them down yet another hallway in a marching kind of way, and the boys lined up behind him, marching just the same. After a few minutes, Peeking gave a little hop, so Heero (who was right behind him) gave a little hop when he got to that spot on the floor, so the rest of them did too. That kind of made Peeking snicker, and a bit later, he veered sharply to the right. It was kind of like follow the leader then and Peeking seemed to find it pretty funny, so they flapped and duck-walked and hopped their way along until they came to a big door, where Peeking finally stopped.

‘You guys are a riot,’ he said, and reached for the door handle. ‘Now mind your manners and remember that the Big Man is on a schedule… you can’t be here all night.’

That sounded kind of scary to Duo, like something bad would happen just like in the fairy tales, if they were still there when the sun came up. ‘Will we turn into pumpkins?’ he asked, and Peeking blinked at him for a minute.

‘No,’ he finally said, ‘we don’t do the pumpkin thing here.’

Well, that was a relief, Duo thought, and then the door was opening and Peeking was waving them in.

‘Thank you, Mr. Elf,’ they all said together, having just been reminded of manners, and Peeking grinned at them.

‘Not a problem, boys,’ he said, and then he shut the door behind them.

Santa Claus was… kind of bigger than the Santas that you saw at the mall. But Duo’s Mom had explained to him how those weren’t the real Santa Claus, but Elves in disguise. The real Santa was like… like… your favorite Grandpa, the principal, and Captain America all rolled into one. A little bit scary, but familiar and you just knew he was going to be nice.

He sat in a big rocking chair by the fire and didn’t look at all like he was in a hurry. He still had lists he was going over and didn’t even have his boots on yet! Duo wondered if maybe Santa was a little bit like his Dad (his Mom said that he would be late to his own funeral one day, which Duo understood to mean very late).

The room was decorated all over and there was a Christmas tree in the corner, and it made Duo wonder if there was a tree in every room in all of the North Pole. And maybe they never got taken down? Because that seemed like it would be a lot of work. It took his Mom all day when she decorated their house and they only had one tree! But maybe it would go faster if his Mom had Elves to help?

‘Well now,’ said Santa Claus, lying aside his papers, ‘I don’t believe we’ve had visitors to the North Pole since… oh, aught four, as I recall. What brings you young lads to see old Santa?’

But all of a sudden nobody quite seemed to know what to say. This was Santa Claus! The Big Man! And mean old Meilan and mean old Dorothy were all wrong! They were there… at the North Pole, and this wasn’t one of those pretend Santa’s in the thin, cheap fuzzy suits.

‘You boys came a long way,’ Santa said, and he was kind of smiling. ‘Surely you want to ask me something? Or did you just come to feed my reindeer?’

‘Please, Santa!’ Quatre finally burst out, getting up his courage. ‘We came to ask you to move Christmas!’

‘Just a little bit!’ Heero said, once somebody else had spoken up.

‘So Mr. Winner has time to come home!’ Wufei said.

‘It can’t be Christmas until Quatre’s Daddy is here!’ Trowa said.

But all of a sudden, hearing it all out loud like that, it didn’t seem quite right to Duo. Quatre was their friend, and they wanted Quatre to be happy, but… what if there were other kids whose Daddy’s were only home this week? What about all the kids who would wake up and be sad when it wasn’t Christmas morning after all? This mission just didn’t seem quite right. ‘Wait…’ Duo said in a very tiny voice.

The guys all turned around to look at him, and Quatre had the upset face and Duo felt bad and just stopped talking. But Santa took off his little reading glasses and leaned forward.

‘Go on, little Duo,’ he said and Duo’s eyes got wide. Santa knew his name!

Duo thought about all those other kids and he said, ‘My Mom was right… we can’t move Christmas.’

He felt awful, because Quatre began to cry and Trowa gave Duo a mean look, but Santa was smiling all warm and encouraging.

‘No, we can’t,’ he said gently.

Duo thought somehow that they’d known that all along, that maybe they just hadn’t worked the plan out all the way. Like when he was doing math homework and didn’t quite get all the way to the end of the problem (Duo wasn’t really good with math like Quatre was).

Santa was still looking at him though, like he was waiting for the rest of it.

It was bigger than him though. Bigger than just Quatre. It was about all the kids in the world and all the families and… and… it needed something bigger to fix it. Moving Christmas wasn’t the end of the problem.

Duo kind of didn’t want to, because he was afraid of finding the same mad look that was on Trowa’s face, but he turned to Heero. Heero helped him with his math homework sometimes, and Heero was the smartest person Duo knew. Heero helped him figure stuff out.

He was glad that Heero didn’t look mad at him. In fact, Heero had his thinking face on, and Duo started to feel better right away.

‘We gotta fix Christmas for everybody,’ Duo said to Heero, and Heero nodded.

‘Then…’ Heero said, thinking so hard that Duo could (as Heero’s Dad said) see the wheels going around. ‘The war needs to go away.’

Duo thought about that, and it made sense. Wasn’t it the war that was keeping Quatre’s father so busy? And it made his Mom sad too! So that was two reasons. ‘Yeah…’ he said, but wasn’t sure just how you went about asking for something to be taken away for Christmas. That seemed very… backward.

But then Wufei came closer and he said, ‘Peace. We need to ask for peace.’

Duo knew that word! It was in all the Christmas carols!

‘Peace?’ Quatre said between sniffles. ‘That would let my Daddy come home?’

Trowa nodded and patted Quatre on the arm. ‘The war would be gone if there was peace.’

And that was the end of the problem… Duo could feel it. He turned to Santa, who had a funny little smile on his face, and said, ‘We came to ask for peace on earth.’

Santa’s funny little smile grew all big, like their teacher Ms. Noin’s did when one of them figured out a really tough problem. Like she was proud of them. ‘Mighty tall order, boys.’

‘Can you do it?’ Quatre asked and it made Santa laugh.

‘That would be telling, now wouldn’t it?’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t want to know what was in all of your presents before Christmas morning, would you?’

Duo thought about the times that he’d tried to sneak peeks into his Mom’s closet right before Christmas, but he decided he wouldn’t say that out loud. Santa gave him a wink anyway and Duo blushed.

‘No sir,’ Quatre said dutifully, but Duo wasn’t sure he really meant it either, cause he looked kind of guilty when he said it.

But at least nobody was giving him mean looks anymore and Quatre even gave him a hug for figuring it out.

‘Now don’t you think you kids should be getting home to bed?’ Santa said, picking his papers back up. ‘It’s pretty late for you to be out wandering around.’

‘Yes, sir!’ they all said together, and there was Peeking opening the door to lead them again. (Duo wondered if maybe Elves knew everything too after all, or if he’d just been listening at the keyhole.)

‘Come along you little musketeers,’ Peeking said. ‘Time we got you home in bed.’

They gathered around and looked up at him (though they didn’t have to look terribly far up, because Elves weren’t really all that tall).

‘Mouseketeers?’ Wufei said, with his ick face on.

‘We don’t watch that show anymore,’ Heero explained.

‘We’re too old,’ Trowa said.

‘So we’re not mouse-people anymore,’ Quatre added.

‘We’re the Impossible Five,’ Duo said, though he didn’t say that he sometimes still liked to watch the cartoon parts of the mouse show even if all the people stuff was kinda dumb.

‘Oh,’ said Peeking, ‘I’ll just bet you are. But all the same… off we go! On a schedule, you know!’

And off he went, stepping as high as he could with his leg out straight, so they stepped too and marched right back through the North Pole house and out into the yard.

Duo got all excited when he saw the sleigh again, and cheered without anybody shushing him. ‘Are we going to get to ride in Santa’s sleigh?’

‘Good heavens, no!’ Said Peeking, looking a little bit like Duo’s Mom did the day she found the frog in the sink that Duo had rescued from the yard. ‘All the weight calculations have already been done! Couldn’t add another ounce, much less you lot!’

‘Oh,’ Quatre said, and his voice was kind of upset in the way it was when Ms. Noin assigned a lot of homework. Duo just knew he was thinking about that long walk home, because Duo was thinking about it too, and he was suddenly so very tired he just wanted to cry from not wanting to. It was so far! All the way home from the North Pole!

‘Holy Christmas!’ Peeking suddenly said, waving his hands at them, ‘none of that! Not to worry! We have more than one sleigh at the North Pole, you know! None of that…. That leeking stuff!’

Trowa made a kind of funny sniffle sound. ‘Really? We don’t have to walk?’ and Duo realized that he and Quatre weren’t the only ones who hadn’t thought about the getting back part.

‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ Peeking said, looking awfully relieved for some reason. And just like that, almost like he’d made it happen by thinking about it, another sleigh pulled up beside Santa’s with just one reindeer in front and the other Peeking Elf driving it.

It wasn’t shiny, or even red, but there looked like there was enough room for all of them and so Duo didn’t care at all.

‘In you go!’ said the Other Elf and they were quick to scramble in. Peeking tucked a blanket around them and Duo found himself between Heero and Wufei and it was quite nice and warm. He just wished they’d thought to ask Mrs. Claus for some more cookies for the trip. Peeking Two climbed up in front in the driver’s seat and was just getting ready to shake the reins when Trowa sat up straight.

‘Buster and Bubba!’ he cried and it made Duo feel bad that he’d forgotten all about their trusty adventurer sled dogs.

‘How could we have forgotten the bottomless pits?’ Peeking muttered to Peeking Two.

‘Let’s get them out of here before they chew up anything else,’ Peeking Two muttered back, and then grinned at the boys. ‘Sit tight and we’ll fetch them.’

It was quiet after the Elves walked off, except when the reindeer snorted or thumped a hoof on the ground.

‘We… did it,’ Heero said, in a whispery kind of voice, almost like he couldn’t believe it, and Duo felt him kind of scootch down and get comfortable.

‘Yeah,’ Duo said. ‘All the way to the North Pole.’

‘And we met Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus,’ Trowa said in a way that made Duo wonder if they should have asked for their autographs.

‘And Santa is going to fix everything,’ Quatre said happily, and yawned real big and giggled.

‘And we got to eat the best Christmas cookies ever!’ Wufei said.

‘Yeah,’ they all agreed, and Duo was suddenly just so tired (it was forever past his bedtime!), that he could hardly keep his eyes open. Quatre yawned great big again and it made Trowa yawn too, and then Duo couldn’t help himself and he yawned too. His Uncle Howard said that yawns were ‘tagious, and now Duo believed him.

He fell asleep before the Elves got back, and must have missed the whole sleigh ride, because he woke up on his trunk under his bedroom window with his flashlight in his hand and his jammies on again.

And there was light coming in his bedroom window! I was morning! It was… Christmas morning!

Duo scrambled down from his trunk, feeling just a little bit tired from all the nighttime adventuring, and ran out to the top of the stairs. He wasn’t allowed downstairs on Christmas morning until his folks were awake, so usually, Duo had to sit on the top step and wait, but this morning he heard voices downstairs, so he hurried right on down.

He was surprised when he ran into the living room, to find the TV on, because Christmas had a no-TV rule (until bedtime when his Mom got out that icky old Christmas movie and they all had to watch it together. Duo was really, really tired of the silly guy running through town wishing everything a Merry Christmas like he was crazy, but it was what his Mom called ‘a tradition’, and he got popcorn, so he didn’t complain too much. Even if he would have rather watched Batman).

His Mom and Dad were standing in the middle of the room though, hugging each other and his Mom was crying a little, but she was smiling real big, so Duo guessed it was a happy cry and not a cry like she’d just burnt Christmas breakfast or something awful like that.

His Mom held out an arm and made Duo come and get smooshed in the middle of their hug and on the TV there was some news show on and there was lots of cheering in the background and people hugging each other and finally his Mom stopped squishing him long enough to tell him, ‘The war is over, honey! They signed the treaty in Sanc this morning!’

Duo wasn’t sure what a treaty was, but if it meant the war was over, he was sure that Santa had made Sanc his first stop and made them behave themselves.

‘He did it!’ Duo yelled, and his parents just looked confused so they didn’t shush him. Duo squirmed out of the middle of the hug and ran for the front hall, shoving his feet in his boots as fast as he could, and then he ran out the front door.

‘Duo!’ his mother hollered, ‘what are you doing!? You’re still in your pajamas!’

‘Santa did it!’ he yelled back. ‘I gotta see the guys!’

‘Honey!’ his mother yelled again, but Duo didn’t have to go far, because Heero was running up his front walk and he could see Trowa climbing over the fence into old lady Une’s yard (it was a shortcut, but you had to be fast before old lady Une caught you and yelled at you to get off her lawn). And Quatre was right behind him and Wufei was coming down the street from the other way and they were all yelling and Quatre was crying, but it was like his Mom had been crying and not at all sad, and it made Duo kind of feel like crying too, but he wasn’t sure why.

‘Daddy will be here before dinner!’ Quatre was yelling before they even got over the fence, and Duo saw old lady Une come out on her patio, but she didn’t even yell.

‘The war is all gone!’ Wufei hollered, waving his arms and running as fast as he could with his boots not even tied.

‘And without moving Christmas!’ Heero cried and grabbed Duo just to spin him around and knock him into the snow.

‘Merry Christmas!’ Trowa said, and then they all piled into the snow with Duo and threw some in the air because they didn’t have confetti.

Duo just giggled and didn’t even mind that his butt was very cold in the snow with just his jammies on.

And, he thought, even if the guys didn’t get to stay with him all day, that just maybe it had turned out to be the most perfect, bestest, most awesomest Christmas ever, after all.


End file.
